“The Northernmost Battle of the Civil War” — The St. Albans RaidBy the fall of 186

“The Northernmost Battle of the Civil War” — The St. Albans RaidBy the fall of 1864, it was becoming increasingly clear that the south was going to lose the Civil War.  The Confederacy suffered from shortages of almost everything; weapons, ammunition, food, clothing, metals, and most especially, manpower.  One commodity that the Confederacy desperately needed was cash, as the government was broke and inflation became so rampart that bricks of Confederate bills were need to buy a mere loaf of bread.  One Confederate soldier, Lt. Bennet H. Young proposed a plan to help fill the Confederate treasury. What he  proposed was a raid in the north from Canada on the border town of St. Albans in Vermont.  There was nothing special about the town, except for an unusually large number of banks.  Even today the small town populated by 7,000 people sports 12 banks and credit unions.  It was hoped that the banks of St. Albans could fill Confederate coffers while at the same divert Union troops away from the south to secure the Canadian border.  The plan was simple, organize a raiding force in Canada, cross the border, rob the banks of St. Albans, burn down the town, and escape back across the Canadian border before the authorities could respond.With the help of Confederate agent George Sanders,  Young recruited 21 men in Canada to carry out the raid.  The men he recruited were Confederate POW’s who escaped from Union prisons and fled to Canada. They had been captured as a result of Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s failed cavalry raids in Indiana and Ohio.  Between October 10th and October 18th of 1864, Young’s men slowly crossed the border into St. Albans in pairs of twos and threes, taking residence in a hotel while claiming they were on vacation or on a business trip.  On the afternoon of October 19th, the men simultaneously robbed the banks in St. Albans.  Holding the tellers at gunpoint, they announced themselves as Confederate soldiers, demanded all the bank’s cash, then forced the tellers to swear an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.  After the banks had been emptied the men gathered the townspeople  in the town square, relieving them of valuables and cash while preparing to burn the town. It was then, however, that the townspeople began to respond.  Some of the citizens, many of whom were Union Army veterans, took arms and resisted the raiders.  After some short exchanges of gunfire the raiders decided to burn the town and make their escape.  They attempted to destroy the town using glass globes filled with incendiaries.  However the bombs failed to ignite and resulted in only the destruction of a small shed.The raiders intended to ride on and strike other towns in a similar manner, however a 90 man posse of townspeople chased the raiders back across the Canadian border.  The raid resulted in the theft of $88,000, the death of St. Alban’s citizens as well as the wounding of two others, and the wounding of one of the raiders. While it seemed that the raiders would get away scot free, they were eventually captured by Canadian authorities and imprisoned in Montreal.  Not wanting to become entangled in Civil War politics, Canada decided not to expedite the men to the United States, citing that the raiders had acted under orders of the Confederate Government and where protected by the rules of war.  The St. Albans raiders unfortunately did not get away with the loot, as Canadian authorities seized the money and returned it to the citizens of St. Albans.  In 2014 St. Albans will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the raid, now called “the northernmost battle of the Civil War.”  Festivities will include a  a Civil War Costume Ball and dramatic re-enactments of the raid staged on the downtown park. Work has already begun on the dramatization and on the enormous sets and backdrops required to bring that fateful day to life. Descendants of the key players in the raid will attend this event and others. -- source link

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